The NHL's top 5 "geriatric" rookies (a.k.a. who's old & new)

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The NHL's top 5 "geriatric" rookies (a.k.a. who's old & new)

When, at 30 years and 72 days, Mark Van Guilder made his debut with the Nashville Predators Sunday, he became the oldest player to suit up for his first NHL game this season. Who are the others to have waited to have their NHL dreams come true? Read on...

When, at 30 years and 72 days, Mark Van Guilder made his debut with the Nashville Predators Sunday, he became the oldest player to suit up for his first NHL game this season.

The NHL Network spoke to Van Guilder about his (long) road to the NHL and his first game. It’s worth a watch if for no other reason than his opening line: “First of all, 400 games (in the minors)? Holy crap!”

With Van Guilder at No. 1, here are the other four oldest NHL debuts from 2013-14:

Anton Belov, Edmonton, D, 27 years, 64 days
No player on this list has contributed more to his team than Belov, who spent nine years in the Russian/Kontinental League before signing with the Oilers in May. He’s had his ups and down – including several scratches both healthy and due to injury, but he’s logging more than 17 minutes a night in his 50 games played. He also suited up for Russia in Sochi.

Julien Brouillette, Washington, D, 27 years, 63 days
The undrafted Brouillette, who’s played more than 200 games in both the American League and ECHL, picked up an assist in his first game and a goal in his second during his first stint with the Capitals in early February. He was recalled Sunday and played his third NHL game, against Nashville.

Reto Berra, Calgary, G, 26 years, 304 days
Expectations were high for Berra after he came over from his native Switzerland. Following some early struggles, specifically with rebound control, the Flames dealt Berra to the Avalanche, who, somewhat questionably, gave him a three-year contract extension. Can goalie guru Francois Allaire work his magic with another big stopper?

Cam Talbot, Rangers, G, 26 years, 141 days
He’s seen just 20 games this season – he’s stuck behind some guy named Lundqvist after all – but when he has played he’s been phenomenal: his .940 save percentage is first in the league and his 1.67 goal-against average is second (behind Minnesota’s Josh Harding). Talbot toiled in the AHL from 2010 to 2013 after spending three years in college with Alabama-Huntsville. If the Rangers make a deep playoff run, Talbot will have played a huge part by allowing ‘The King’ to get his regular-season rest.

Edward Fraser, The Hockey News’ Managing Editor, joined THN in 2005 after covering the Jr. B Stratford Cullitons. The London, Ont., native graduated from the University of Western Ontario – where he did campus radio color commentary for both men’s and women’s hockey – with a Master’s in Journalism. He really, really hates the loser point.

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Cal Clutterbuck’s five-year extension won’t bite the Islanders for a couple of seasons, but when it does, it could cost the Islanders more than just money and cap flexibility.

Cal Clutterbuck is on pace to have his highest scoring season as a New York Islander, he’s averaging more ice time than he has in any other year with the club and he was given an alternate captaincy ahead of the campaign.

And even with all that, it’s hard to understand how exactly the Islanders saw fit to have the 29-year-old winger a five-year, $17.5-million extension.

Clutterbuck is undoubtedly one of the best at playing the specific role he plays, which is to say that if you’re looking for a hard-nosed player who’s going to put his body on the line, he’s your guy. Fans love him, teammates assuredly do, too, and he’s exactly the kind of bottom-six player that most GMs around the league would love to have on their team at the right price.

Problem is that it’s really tough to call $3.5 million per season the right price, and that’s exactly what Clutterbuck will be earning come the start of the 2017-18 campaign. That’s roughly the same cap hit as others such as Kyle Turris, Cam Atkinson, Joel Ward and Matt Read will be carrying next season, and that’s only to name a few.

Another worrisome part about the deal is that it’s hard to see how even the biggest fitness freak could maintain their ability to play Clutterbuck’s style into their mid-30s. The wear and tear on Clutterbuck’s body by the time he reaches the back-end of the contract could be substantial. Despite him playing up the lineup right now, he’s better suited to a bottom-six role and definitely will be later in his career. If he loses a step, $3.5 million will be a lot to fork over for a fourth-line winger and it’ll be a deal that’s near impossible to move.

But it goes beyond simply the signing of Clutterbuck, because there has now been a trio of deals handed out by Islanders GM Garth Snow that have been puzzling — and, truthfully, concerning — when it comes to the future of the team.

Ahead of free agency, there was the signing of Casey Cizikas to a five-year, $16.75-million deal. Then came the monster seven-year, $38.5-million contract inked by free agent Andrew Ladd. The Clutterbuck signing is No. 3.

It should be noted that the deals for Clutterbuck, Cizikas and Ladd don’t actually prevent the Islanders from doing all that much in the next two seasons. In fact, as of next season, every single current Islander forward will be locked up to a contract. Come 2018-19, when John Tavares becomes a free agent, the slate is wiped rather clean with the team able to operate with more than $40 million in cap space. Beyond Tavares, the Islanders’ UFAs come 2018-19 will include Josh Bailey, Nikolai Kulemin, Jason Chimera, Mikhail Grabovski and Thomas Hickey.

And $40-plus million can buy you a lot, and certainly it will allow the Islanders to hang on to Tavares, if he chooses to remain with the team. (Not to say he won’t, but a lot can happen between now and July 2018.) All the UFAs, save maybe Bailey and Hickey, will be allowed to head elsewhere, as well. A restricted free agent deal for Brock Nelson could be pricey, but the Islanders should realistically be able to lock him up. As of right now, the Islanders will also be without an NHL goaltender under contract, but there will be stop-gap options available. So, yes, the Islanders should be fine in 2017-18 and 2018-19.

However, things could get dicey after that.

Come 2019-20, the Islanders will watch Travis Hamonic become a UFA, see the end of entry-level deals for Mathew Barzal, Anthony Beauvillier, Joshua Ho-Sang and Michael Dal Colle and still have more than $12.3 million locked up in Ladd, Cizikas and Clutterbuck. Finding the money to lock up those five players, as well as any others who could be seeking new contracts around that time, will be incredibly difficult.

The cost of those trio of deals goes beyond money and cap space, though, because there’s a serious possibility the Islanders could waste some of the best years of Tavares’ career. If the Islanders can only afford to hang on to the pieces they have without being able to add any veteran or prime-aged players, it gets hard to see how this franchise takes the next step forward, even with Tavares in his prime.

They’ll need a few adds on defense, a few forwards who can contribute and the goaltending situation will need to be figured out. Ilya Sorokin should give Islanders fans hope, but even the best goaltending prospects sometimes don’t pan out in the big league. If the Islanders need to improve in goal when their prospects are hitting their stride, the money spent in the past seven months could very well prevent that from becoming a reality.

It’s big-money, head-scratcher deals like Clutterbuck’s that teams have had to buy their way out of in the past, and it’s scary to think the Islanders could have set themselves up for the same fate three times over. The Islanders' post-season performance was reason for excitement, but now it seems, more than anything, there's cause for concern about what the future could hold.

Capitals’ Mites on Ice player follows up goal with greatest celebration

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Capitals’ Mites on Ice player follows up goal with greatest celebration

A young Washington Capitals fan took part in the Mites On Ice intermission game, and he delivered one of the best goal celebrations you’ll see this season.

For all the shoot the puck, obstacle courses and human bowling there is to be found during intermissions, it’s hard for anything to really top watching a bunch of kids who are new to the game rip around the ice in an intermission scrimmage.

And it’s even harder to top the mites game, or what Canadians know better as Timbits hockey, when the game features a goal celebration that is big-league ready, as was the case during the first intermission of Monday’s game between the Capitals and Sabres.

The first mid-period break in action between Washington and Buffalo featured the Capitals’ Mites On Ice, and, more importantly, it introduced us to one of the all-time great goal celebrations. During the action, a youngster named Micha scored on a breakaway, fell to his knees and celebrated for a full 15 seconds, hollering with excitement, pumping his arms and raising his stick above his head:

Micha definitely took some of his celebrating cues from his favorite player, Alex Ovechkin, but we wouldn’t mind seeing Ovechkin with an homage to Micha.

The Capitals would go on to win Monday’s game 3-2 in overtime, but no word on how exactly Micha celebrated Marcus Johansson’s game-winning goal.

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Fans want to see NHL players play at the Olympics, the players want to play in the tournament, but the NHL’s Board of Governors still needs some convincing.

If the NHL is going to send players to the Olympics, the NHL’s Board of Governors are going to need some convincing and they’re going to need it in rather short order.

It was reported around the World Cup of Hockey that the NHL had a mid-January deadline to decide on Olympic participation for the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. And at the first day of Board of Governors meetings in Palm Beach, Fla., little more than a month from that deadline, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman didn’t make it sound as though the situation is all that positive in terms of the world’s best players heading to the tournament.

One of the sticking points for the Board of Governors, according to Bettman, was the impact the Olympics have on the NHL product.

"There are a lot of owners, clubs, over the years that have been very concerned about what Olympic participation does to the season, what it does to the players in terms of injuries, not just to those that go but having a compressed schedule can make the players more tired, more wear and tear, and the potential for injury is greater,” Bettman said, according to NHL.com’s Dan Rosen.

Even still, Bettman approached the IIHF’s assurance of covering the costs with skepticism and a warning that it doesn’t mean Olympic participation is green lit.

"We have been very clear to Rene Fasel at the IIHF and to Don Fehr at the [NHL] Players' Association that if the expenses aren't being covered, the League isn't paying for them and there really is nothing to talk about," Bettman said, according to Rosen. "Just because somebody may decide to pay for them, and to this point we don't actually know where that stands, that doesn't mean that it's a go.”

Bettman added that he wasn’t sure there was “even the money to cover what's been covered in the last Olympics,” regardless of what the IIHF would say. And even if everything fell in line for an Olympic participation proposal in the coming days, weeks or month, Bettman said it will still need the approval of the Board of Governors in order for the players to be sent to South Korea for the tournament.

"If there is something at some point to take to the Board, it will need an affirmative vote of the Board of Governors," Bettman said, according to Rosen. "I think it's fair to say that there is some strong negative sentiment in the room, but nothing was decided today.”

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Connor McDavid didn’t mince his words when asked post-game about Brandon Manning. He called the Flyers defenseman “classless” and said Manning admitted to injuring him on purpose.

Connor McDavid has had no shortage of head-to-head battles with young stars in the game. There has been outings against Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews and more than handful per year against the Flames duo of Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan.

But of all the players Connor McDavid could have had an on-ice feud with, it seems Brandon Manning is the first real rival for the Oilers phenom.

One might recall that it was during the early part of the 2015-16 campaign that Manning, a Philadelphia Flyers blueliner, got tangled up with McDavid as he looked to break in on goal, resulting in McDavid making hard contact with the boards behind the net. The impact with the boards saw McDavid break his collarbone and led to a 37-game absence for the then-rookie.

It was believed to be an unintentional act, something that simply happened as part of the game, and McDavid had even absolved Manning of any blame. That was until last night, more than 13 months after the Nov. 3, 2015 injury to McDavid..

During the Oilers’ hard-fought 6-5 defeat at the hands of the Flyers, McDavid was seen verbally jousting with Manning on a couple of occasions. The most obvious case came after a power play goal by McDavid, where he was seen skating towards Manning and shouting something in his direction.

It didn’t end there, though. Post-game, the Oilers captain went in on Manning, calling the hit that led to the broken collarbone an intentional act.

"I did all I could defending him last year in the media," McDavid said. "Everyone wanted to make a big deal saying he did it on purpose, and he wanted to say some comments today about what went on last year. I thought it was one of the [most] classless things I've ever seen on the ice. He said some things and our guys responded accordingly. I guess we can put the whole 'if he did it on purpose' thing to rest because what he said out there kind of confirmed that. Shows what kind of guy he is when he doesn’t step up and fight some of our guys.”

Shortly after McDavid commented on the incident, Manning fired back saying that he would “never intentionally hurt someone,” and added that’s not the way he plays.

"Anybody who knows me, I play a hard game,” Manning said, according to NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman. “That's the reason I'm here, that's the way I'm in the NHL. I'm not here to score goals like some of those guys. I think I play an honest game, and anyone who knows me knows I play hard and stuff happens out there."